This week: We salute the changing of the guard at DisInfo, Bad vibes in Isla-Town, Vlad the Impaler found!, Washington hippy news, Ouija boards now on the NHS, Get that vag in shape!, Soooo Normcore, Spotty Mars logic, and get your folk on with shirley Collins.

Scholar Daniel Harms is an expert on the history of magic and the works of H.P. Lovecraft, creator of the Cthulhu Mythos. Harms and host Matt Staggs discuss The Long Lost Friend, an authentic American grimoire, along the way taking fascinating diversions into the murky and contentious history of a not-so-authentic grimoire: The Necronomicon. Join us for an hour of occult secrets, esoteric rivalry and imagination on this episode of The DisinfoCast.

At first, Andy Behrman’s manic episodes gave him an edge among the young professional elite of 1980s New York City: thousands of ideas tumbled out of his super-charged brain and he slept only a couple of hours a night, leaving him plenty of time to pursue them all. Soon, though, the dizzying highs and crushing lows of his undiagnosed bipolar disorder grew too strong, and Andy’s life spun out of control. He developed a taste for drugs, quick money and risky sex. He grew delusional and grandiose, spending thousands of dollars on impulsive trips around the world and luxury goods. His mania-fueled joyride ended in a federal court, an accused embezzler and forger of modern art.

It took almost 20 rounds of electroconvulsive therapy to bring some degree of normalcy to Andy’s life, but his story doesn’t end there. He became a spokesperson for a powerful pharmaceutical company, ultimately betraying his corporate paymasters to become one of their harshest critics.

Big pharma critic, author and mental health advocate Andy Behrman is my guest on this episode of The DisinfoCast.

In this episode of The Disinfocast I interview Peter Bebergal, who went looking for meaning and found ritual magick, punk rock and hallucinogenics instead. I talk with Bebergal about his new memoir Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood, stopping along the way to parse out the difference between magick and mysticism, the mythic power of Marvel Comics and whether or not LSD is a valid tool for enlightenment.

Listen to Peter Bebergal’s journey on the latest episode of The Disinformation Company’s official podcast, The DisinfoCast.

iTunes | Download (mp3) The Disinformation Company is excited to announce the return of the Disinformation Podcasts with The Disinfocast, hosted by Matt Staggs. Matt Staggs is a writer and longtime aficionado…